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As bad as it looks to reward a coach who hasn’t brought in a nickel of playoff revenue in three years, Brian Burke believed it would have been worse to give up on Ron Wilson now.

Never mind the questionable optics of giving Wilson a contract extension without that playoff spot sewn up.

“I’m not much on optics, how it looks, feels or smells,” general manager Burke snapped in Monday’s hastily convened press conference at the Air Canada Centre. “I have to do what’s best for the team. And I think it’s best the players know the coach isn’t going anywhere.”

Until now, despite the constant playoff heartbreak and the public scolding many Leafs have endured from Wilson, they have not turned on their mentor. And Burke was not going to risk that happening, by serving them a lame duck near the end of a four-year term.

“When the coach goes into the cage, he needs the chair and the whip, not just one of them,” Burke said of providing the contract insurance.

“When people are clamouring for a coaching change, there are visible signs it’s time to change. Agents are calling and complaining that players aren’t going to play for him, there are unnamed players, we call ’em snipers, taking their shots. There has been none of that (with Wilson). I had players come to me last year, saying: ‘Don’t change the coach’. This is a coach who has earned this extension. It’s not charity, it’s not a gift.”

Burke would not hear of getting egg on his face should he pay Wilson and the Leafs miss playoffs again — “Ask me that at the end of the year, I’m not interested in hypotheticals’ — but refused comment on Wilson’s term and salary. It’s likely that one year would be too little and three too much.

“From last year’s all-star break (in early February), to this year, our record is 36-22-10. That’s the first period I really feel it’s appropriate to hold the coaching staff accountable. Up to then, I feel I didn’t give them good enough players.

“I’ve said all along to Ronny, until the point comes where I think we can compete for a playoff spot, then I expect more. I think now the burden has shifted to the coaches. It’s time to extend him.”

Burke called 40 points in the first 35 games “pretty impressive ... a healthy clip”, even though the Leafs could be out of the top eight playoff teams by the time they play Winnpeg on New Year’s Eve as part of the coming road trip. But Burke has stood by his Providence College buddy through a lot worse.

“He’s is in the top 10 in every category in the history of the game,” Burke said of Wilson’s 637 wins, though not his 546 losses and 189 overtime setbacks and ties. “He’s a Hall of Fame coach, if you can get in the Hall without a Stanley Cup. I don’t know the criteria. But he’s at that level, so yes, there is some respect involved and I think he had done a good job.”

Yet, it would take just two or three losses in a row to rekindle the ‘fire Wilson’ chants at the ACC, which also made Burke bristle.

“If we fired Ron, he’d be working again in about two weeks,” Burke insisted. “That’s what people don’t realize. They’re chanting ‘fire Wilson’. But first thing to consider, is if he is going to be hired by someone else. He’s not been out of work his whole career. There’s a reason for that. The hockey community believes in this guy. And what’s Plan B? Who’s out there with better credentials than Ron?”

Well, the Leafs do have Dallas Eakins with the Marlies and Burke’s Cup-winning coach from Anaheim, Randy Carlyle might still be unemployed in the spring. But Burke also said on Monday it’s the nature of the business that good people such as Eakins sometimes get away.

For Burke, who hoped to be in the playoffs by his second or third year, at the helm, now it has to be Wilson or bust.

“I’m not a patient person,” Burke said. “And this job has been the hardest period of my professional life as far as waiting for this team to round its way into the type I want on the ice. I think we have that group now. I’m disappointed how long it has taken me.”

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment won’t be able to mark up the ticket prices, but their hockey team is at least trying to convince themselves they’re in the playoffs as the calendar approaches April.